The CG Princesses and Disney Animation

Look, there's been a lot of talk lately about how supposedly similar Anna and Elsa from Disney's upcoming animated feature Frozen look in comparison to Rapunzel in Tangled. And then that statement that a Frozen animator said that has mostly been taken out-of-context. Before pressing on, I highly recommend taking a look at this article real quick - just so you can fully follow along :)

I'll admit that I felt this way when I first saw those supposed "leaked posters" - but I pulled those images from my blog once I found out that Disney was requesting various site to remove said posters as they were fakes. Unfortunately, not all of the images were taken down, and mislead movie-goers are pulling up the pictures and crying foul.

Admittedly, both images were close to the final character designs, but still, they were unfinished. The public groaned over the similarity between princesses, but really, was that fair of us?

Before we tackle this question, we need to look at the official character designs and how they are translating to the screen.

Elsa Final Sketch

Anna Final Sketch

Anna, Elsa, and for your bonus enjoyment, Kristoff ;)

CG Film

I really love the original sketches. There's obviously a strong similarity between the initial concept art and the final CG designs, but as you can tell, the transition was not seamless. Both Anna and Elsa have rounder faces, and even their eyes are slightly different.

Now let's take a look at how Rapunzel translated from concept art to film.

Concept art

CG Advertising

Final film version

Now, I could pull tons of pictures and stick them side-by-side, but have any of you noticed the huge discrepancy between all of Rapunzel's supposed "looks?" I mean, just look at the CG advertising image and compare it to the final version. Rapunzel's eyes used to be set far wider apart. The advertising image was supposed to be the final "official" version of her, and still, it wasn't.

But now take a look at the concept art again. That was how Glen Keane designed her to look. Her features were sharper. She looked a little more mature. Her chin was smaller, etc.

Do you get the point that I'm trying to make here? The animators sketch up these beautiful designs, but when it comes time to entering it into the computer, those designs have to be altered. How something looks in 2D might not necessarily work once it is switched over to the 3D format. And once you start comparing those character designs, you notice differences between the princesses.

Yes, there is certainly a similar "look" going on. Disney is known for their traditional Disney Princess looks. Merida was a huge departure from that design element, but she was created by the Pixar team, not Walt Disney Animation. Her face is also very round, so CG naturally helped that along. Should Disney try to do something different? It's arguable that they should, but whenever they have, Disney has assessed that the films do not do as well at the box office.

So here's that infamous quote that everyone is fuming about right now:

Historically speaking, animating female characters are really, really difficult, ’cause they have to go through these range of emotions, but they’re very, very — you have to keep them pretty and they’re very sensitive to — you can get them off a model very quickly. So, having a film with two hero female characters was really tough, and having them both in the scene and look very different if they’re echoing the same expression; that Elsa looking angry looks different from Anna (Kristen Bell) being angry.”

Yes, that animator wasn't as careful with his words as they should have been (at least, not enough for the internet to quote him later.) Yes, both women and men alike are supposedly difficult to animate, as the classic Disney animators will say in many interviews that no one ever wanted to animate a prince, yet they were comfortable animating characters like the seven dwarfs because they didn't feel like they had to make them look handsome or pretty.

But the quote was taken out of context because the very reason this animator even said any of that was that he was explaining the difficulty of translating the original character designs into the CG format - which is why I've been showing you all the vast difference between sketch to final film designs.

But no, I do not think that these princesses and princes and whatever other supposed ingenue leads Disney comes up with need to look beautiful all the time. If they are to represent normal human beings that we can relate to, they need to express a full range of emotions.

I blame marketing, I truly do. It's why all of the princesses (Merida included, as the internet remembers) got sparkly sexy mess makeovers. It is reportedly what Disney makes more money off of, because little girls want all of their princesses to fit into the same world where they all have a similar look and could possibly be friends, even if it disconnects the characters from their own worlds.

They're afraid to have a single frame of Anna or Elsa look not-so-pretty, because they do not want these characters to end up being "tarnished" in any way. And while I would whole-heartedly prefer that they animate their heroes and heroines in a fully realistic manner, I understand their wariness. Because anyone could take a single frame from their film, upload it online and turn it into a meme that Disney may not be comfortable with.

That's probably not their primary fear, though. Their ultimate goal of marketing is to make little girls continue to love Disney Princesses, and because of that, marketing will always be obsessive with their appearance. They want these female characters to be so beautiful that these little girls will always want to purchase the dolls, dress up like them, etc. And since marketing likes to make them a set, their looks have to be "streamlined."

While that may be somewhat disheartening, here's the good news - marketing can't go back and change how a film is animated. Cinderella's ball gown in her classic film will always be white/silver - marketing cannot touch the film and make her dress blue.

This whole situation is pretty ironic. As I've noted here before, just a few weeks before Tangled was to be released, another Disney employee made a statement that was taken out-of-context. That Disney was supposedly never going to make another fairy tale again. That's not what he actually meant - what he was trying to say was that Disney had no interest in pursuing the little girl demographic with princess films, because apparently princesses didn't do well at the box office because Princess and the Frog was released at the same time as Avatar and the economy was in the middle of its nasty downturn. And then Tangled did well and the "boys club" (as Brenda Chapman aptly puts it) ate their words and pulled the Snow Queen project off of the shelf, which had been an on-again off-again production for a long time at Disney.

As hard as the boys club works, they still seem to not understand why Disney has become the powerhouse that it has. The two films that saved the Disney animation studio from closing were Cinderella and The Little Mermaid - and let's not forget the very first Disney animated feature film that starred Snow White, which was a huge success for the Disney company. They need to understand that it's so much more than just having pretty princesses make a nice doll set.

It's about having any female character to have a story center around her. Because most forms of entertainment star a male character, the male-to-female character ratio is generally 3-to-1, and at best, the female is just in a supporting romantic role, only there to romantically engage the male hero.

Traditionally, boys have had their superheroes. Yes, Marvel and DC have female superheroes as well, but do they get big-budget movies starring just them? Marvel's Avengers set, which has done tremendously well at the box office, only has one female heroine that has not even had her own movie. And let's face it...while Black Widow is awesome, her story is still greatly shrouded in mystery and her costume is a basic black leather catsuit which more than likely doesn't really help her all that much in combat. Over on DC's side, they've been working on a Wonder Woman film for years, and at this rate, it's just never going to happen because all of these big male executives are too chicken to finish the job.

So where does that leave female movie-goers, especially ones of the younger variety who wants toys and costumes to pretend that they are those characters because there is something inside of them that they aspire to be? Disney heroines often enter the picture, and these women generally emulate great compassion, dedication, dreams and fulfilling them. The female underdog that somehow, despite all of these obstacles thrown in her way, achieves her happy ending because she chooses to be brave and takes a risk to get there. Yes, they're beautiful and have wonderful dresses that many of us want to wear, but it's their story and their heart that connect with people all over the world.

But these marketing folks that are aiming to sell as much product as they can - and to a certain extent, many of the higher-ups at Disney - well, I don't think they realize that. Maybe the little boys want the toy cars because it gives the boys a sense of action and the cars are shiny, but personally, I connected with Cinderella because the world was often cruel to her and she continually responded with kindness and her goodness granted her a happily ever after - not because she had a big ballgown and danced with a prince.

In any case, if marketing has this much control over the creative process - and believe me, they do certainly have some clout - then we as fans need to speak up. We can't just say that a statement is misogynistic (even when it is), because that's not going to change the creative process in animating these characters. We need to say that we want to see real human expressions, even if that means that a character is suddenly unattractive. That we want to see more realistic portrayals of humanity, even along with the nitty-gritty.

And maybe, just maybe, we need to stop untagging ourselves or deleting pictures where we ourselves do not feel that we look "perfect." Maybe we all need to recognize that perfection is truly in the eye of the beholder, and that perhaps it is time to practice what we preach when we tell little girls that they do not have to look a certain way to feel good about themselves. Because until that happens, quite honestly, none of this is going to change.

A Sleeping Beauty Post

I just took a lovely trip to Europe and spent a whole week in Paris. I wanted to hit several tourist spots, but I knew that I absolutely had to visit Disneyland Paris. I am a California native, and had only been to the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, so I was very excited to visit a different set of Disney parks.

While I will not go into detail here about that trip, I would like to take a look at the differences between Anaheim's and Paris' castles, as they share a distinctly connective feature: Sleeping Beauty.

Originally, Sleeping Beauty Castle in Anaheim was to be named Snow White Castle (in fact, Walt accidentally called it that on television). Disneyland opened in 1955, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves had garnered Disney many awards and achievements, so it seemed to just be natural that the first animated film would have a tribute to it smack dab in the center of Walt's grand park. However, since the beginning of the 1950s, the Walt Disney Animation Studio had been hard at work trying to translate the classic fairytale of Sleeping Beauty into a full-length animated feature film. The movie was causing the studio a great amount of headaches, and costing quite a bit of money because it was taking so long to make (the film didn't finally open until 1959). The detail that went into this film was incredible – it took a whole week just to finish painting a single background for the film, and for the first time, it was the backgrounds and environments that were taking precedence over the design of the film instead of the characters. As they say in Hollywood, time is money, and this picture was worrying a lot of people at the studio in terms of finances. But Walt was proud of what his Studio was creating, and wanted to give the film a bit of a promotional boost…so Walt decided to name his new castle Sleeping Beauty Castle instead. Additionally, in the original model for the castle, the top half was backwards; one of the designers had been playing with the model, and as Walt was about to walk in, the top half got switched around and the Imagineers did not have enough time to turn it back the "right way" before the big boss came in. Ironically, Walt loved the castle backwards, so the design stuck. For the overall design, Imagineers took inspiration from the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany.

  

Since Disneyland opened before Sleeping Beauty was released to theaters, this was the perfect way to advertise ahead of time. The downside to this was that not everything in the film had been finalized; still, the Imagineers worked with what they had. The Walk-Through was not there when the park first opened, but Walt hated unused space (and loved using that space to create even grander things), so the idea for guests to actually go up inside the castle was born. To create more of an attraction out of the castle, WED built the Sleeping Beauty Walk-Through, which visually told the story of Sleeping Beauty (albeit in a more dark and dramatic way with perhaps more focus on Maleficent than the full story) through flat paintings that were inspired by Eyvind Earle's artistry (the man who created the look for the film, and he was also directly involved in the creation of the attraction) – and that version opened in 1957. Twenty years later, the attraction was re-designed with three-dimensional dioramas. While this face-lift made the attraction more "hip" for the time and gave a full account of the Sleeping Beauty story, it somewhat lacked the artistic finesse that had been seen with Earle's artistic look. As the years passed, Disneyland's upkeep became rather questionable, and the Walk-Through, while still open, wasn't tremendously popular (many guests didn't even know about it, for that matter). After September 11^th, 2001, Disneyland's attendance and revenue took a nasty turn for the worse, and management was looking to find any way they could to make cuts. The attraction closed in October "for refurbishment" – in reality, Disney probably had no intention to ever refurbish the attraction. Disneyland's 50^th anniversary came and went, with a major resurgence of popularity and fiscal gain, but still the Walk-Through remained closed (and was rumored of being used as a storage area for the 50^th fireworks). But Disney loves synergy, and that fact alone just might have been enough to greenlight an updated version of the attraction to tie-in with the release of the Sleeping Beauty Blu-Ray/DVD release for the film's 50^th anniversary. The newest version now showcases the old school Eyvid Earle style, but makes it three-dimensional in dioramas with up-to-date special effects to make for some really magical displays.

 

When Imagineers were given the task to create a new Sleeping Beauty Castle for Paris, however, they wanted to do something different. By that point, several other Disney castles had been built and WDI had created a better system for physically setting up their parks to accommodate large crowds (and to make things look even grander than before). The park was built with complete consideration of beauty, so WDI created a Sleeping Beauty Castle (or, in French, Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant) straight out of their 1959 film, complete with a beautiful grassy hill. To make the castle even more spectacular, they created three levels: at the bottom, a dungeon-like area with Maleficent in dragon form (and perhaps the most amazing Audio-Animatronic that I have ever seen), the normal entry-level to go in from Main Street and out into Fantasyland, and at the top a set of beautiful stained-glass windows and tapestries detailing the story of Sleeping Beauty.

On the one hand, we have the original. Disneyland in Anaheim is the original Disney theme park period, and it is the only one that Walt Disney personally touched. Being the first, it is smaller, so of course, the castle is smaller than Disneyland Paris'. While some like to say that bigger is always better, I personally treasure how intimate Disneyland is, and as a result, I love that the castle is the size that it is. However, the scale is perfectly calculated in Paris…Main Street is much bigger by all accounts, so of course the castle needs to be bigger. Their castle is also film-accurate, down to the look of the base on a lovely green hill. The entrance is spectacular, with a gorgeous moat (well…when the moat is properly filled, that is)…but, Anaheim has a real-working drawbridge, while Paris does not. Both castles have fun film-detailing: in Anaheim you can find statues of Briar Rose's friends surrounding the castle, while in Paris you can find the characters designed into the architecture. At Anaheim, the castle sparkles! In Paris, it…well, could use some more paint. Paris has a dragon with smoke coming out of her nostrils, while Anaheim has a mix of dioramas and interactive elements. I was bummed when I visited Paris because the castle was under construction, so I never got to see the top floor. I'm glad that they are finally giving the castle some proper TLC at least.

And perhaps that is ultimately why I still love the castle in Anaheim a little bit more. Had the castle in Paris been kept up over the years like the one in Anaheim, I would possibly re-consider…but the fact that their management let the castle fall into the shape that it was in (to show such a dramatic extent of work that had to be done on the castle to clean it up) really hurt the way the castle (and, as I found in other parts, the whole park) looked in my eyes. In defense of the castle, though, I can see that in pristine condition it would be a glorious sight to behold…and heaven knows that I could have stared at that dragon for a whole hour (my family had to urge me to finally go on). What a shame that Walt Disney World's Animal Park did not receive even a part of the design of the dragon for that ill-fated Discovery River Ride that would have tied in with the Beastly Kingdom concept. Too bad Disney threw the money at creating an animatronic of a character from their movie Dinosaur instead. Anyhow…hopefully, when this transformation on the castle (and the park) is complete for the park's big birthday celebration next year, it will be something that Princess Aurora could be proud of. There is currently quite a bit of excitement going on, as there has been some interesting work done on the moat to make some wonder if there might be some World of Color-esque fountains being installed to make for an exciting show for the anniversary.

I don't know about you, but one of my favorite bits from Sleeping Beauty is Flora and Merryweather fighting over what color Aurora's beautiful dress should be (and I really, really wish Disney would give us a little more blue). As a bride today, women have more than just the typical white option – and in fact, blue and pink are gaining quite a bit of momentum in the bridal market. So, for the Aurora at heart, I felt it would be great to feature a little blue and a little pink. From top to bottom: Claire Pettibone, Jewel by Priscilla of Boston, Oscar de la Renta, and Judd Waddell for 2012.

 

Disney Bridal Gowns – No Kirstie Kelly?

In 2007, Disney teamed up with wedding gown designer Kirstie Kelly to debut Disney Bridal by Kirstie Kelly.

The initial collection was released to, judging by internet comments, mixed reviews. Some were highly disgusted or disappointed because they either hated Disney in the first place (citing that the company feeds the female sex unrealistic expectations regarding love and life – to which I say, what piece of media doesn't?) or because none of the dresses seemed to look like any of the actual dresses of the princesses from their respective films. Others, however, were thrilled at the prospect of finally being able to purchase a "Disney" wedding gown. And while plus-size ladies were initially left out in the cold, eventually Kirstie Kelly added a line for them, too.

Fast-forward to 2010. At the beginning of the year, David Tutera teamed up with Kirstie Kelly and Disney to create a Disney Weddings book (comments are found earlier in this blog).

Imagine my surprise when I tried to check up on the collections at disneybridal.com – to find Kirstie Kelly's line eliminated and promoting a new line by Alfred Angelo.

Don't get me wrong – I'm happy to see that Disney is trying to include budget-conscious brides here. These gowns are significantly more affordable than Kirstie's. However, the former line was not in the most expensive category for bridal gowns. High-end designer bridal gowns can end up being $20,000 or more, and Ms. Kelly's line was around $1,000-$3,000.

I'm not terribly impressed by these dresses. They are pretty, but most of them look like dresses that the designer had already created and put on the market before Disney approached them. What especially disappoints me is that Rapunzel is not included in the collection. I know that the collection was released before Tangled came to theaters, but the time gap is not that big (then again, that film went through so many changes that perhaps when the designer was creating mock-ups for his new dresses the animators did not have anything to give him for reference). In any case, these gowns still suffer from the same issue with the first line – none of them look much like the outfits we actually saw our favorite Disney Princesses in (though I will say that Alfred Angelo came closer that Kirstie Kelly did).

For the record, here are some points of reference:

 Characters and their likenesses copyrighted by Disney.

But here's the real question: are we going to start seeing Alfred Angelo Disney Bridal Rings, too? Because at least that gives one room for interpretation without significant basis…